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May 24, 2012, 5:51 am UTC

In 2011, Google began its pilot project of Business Photo Service in several cities around the world. Under the project involved photographers took 360 degree panoramic photos of business interiors so that they could put it up on the web.

Now, Google has launched this service in India extending the global reach of the service that helps retailers attract customers by posting panoramic photos of their store or shop-front to the Web.

Rahul Kulkarni, Senior Product Manager at Google India gave more details about the rollout on their official blog.

“We are now excited to bring this pilot project to India, starting with Hyderabad and rolling out to several other cities. The photographs are shot by Google appointed photographers who work directly with the business owner to arrange a time to do the photo shoot. The images will show prospective customers the interiors, decor, merchandise — and all of this will be done at no cost to the business owner. The panoramic photos will appear alongside other still photos on a business’ Place Page and can help potential customers get a better sense of what an establishment has to offer and if they’d like to visit it in person.”

Google stated that these panoramic photos will appear across various Google properties like Google searches, Google Maps and Google Places. Businesses can also embed these photos on their own website and social media pages by embedding a HTML snippet from Google Maps.

The initiative in India has begun in Hyderabad and will be rolling out to other cities soon. Google states it’s currently focusing on businesses like restaurants, cafes, spas, salons, gyms, showrooms, and retail stores through this initiative although other businesses can also sign up for the service. Companies that are interested in participating can register their interest in having a Google-sponsored photographer take their shots.

Business Photos initially launched in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and France before Google expanded it to Canada, Netherlands and Ireland on May 1.